GameSpot and other outlets are reporting that Electronic Arts continues to lay off its global workforce as part of a restructuring plan to streamline its development apparatus and (obviously) lower costs. According to MCV India the latest studio to be hit by layoffs is EA mobile development operations in India.

Well that didn't take too long. Less than a year after Electronic Arts announced that it would open its customer service center in Galway, Ireland to handle customer services for various game properties in the region, the company has already started laying off staff. EA has been quietly cutting staff and reducing its workforce in the last week or so as part of a cost-cutting measure.

The Vancouver-based development studio that created Resident Evil: Operation Racoon City and SOCOM: US Navy SEALs Fireteam Bravo 3 has instituted temporary layoffs, according to GamesIndustry International. Speaking to GII a representative for Slant Six Games said that it had to reduce operating cost in the short term and that it hopes to hire back as many employees as it can sometime later on down the road:

Electronic Arts has laid off a number of employees at its Montreal-based mobile game development studio, according to a Polygon report. The company says that these layoffs are part of an overall strategy to streamline operations, though the mobile studio seems to have been impacted the hardest in this latest round of job cuts. No word on whether EA is cutting jobs elsewhere.

Sega has confirmed with Kotaku that it plans to close its Brisbane-based development studio later this year. Sega said that it would close Sega Studios Australia later this year, but gave no particular reason for shutting down the operation.

The publisher says it will shut down Sega Studios Australia later this year; no rationale provided.

Activision has confirmed with GameSpot that it has laid off around 40 full-time High Moon Studios employees following the completion of Deadpool. High Moon Studios is best known for Deadpool and Transformers.

Disney is closing LucasArts, the game development studio that has been a part of the LucasFilms family for decades. Disney said that its shift from an internal development model to a licensing model means that it needs to minimize its risks for its "broader portfolio" of games.

Layoffs have reportedly hit Timegate Studios, the development studio that helped co-develop Aliens: Colonial Marines alongside Gearbox Software. The number of layoffs are unknown at this time but Timegate has confirmed to Polygon that these layoffs have in fact happened.

GamesRadar is reporting that BioWare San Francisco has been shut down and all of its 25 - 30 employees have been laid off, a source within the company tells the publication. The studio, formerly known as EA2D, developed the Facebook game Dragon Age: Legends and Mirror's Edge 2D for browsers.

GamesRadar's source claims that Electronic Arts apparently came to the conclusion that it was "too expensive" to develop mobile games in Redwood Shores, CA.

GameFly, the leader in video game rentals by-mail and on-demand through PC has laid off a number of its staff today as part of a restructuring plan, Joystiq reports. In a prepared statement to Joystiq GameFly CEO Dave Hodess said that these layoffs are part of the company's business aligning itself better to existing console and digital games markets.

GamesBeat is reporting that the Baltimore, Maryland studio that used to be headed up by veteran game developer Brian Reynolds has been shut down by social games publisher Zynga. The studio is responsible for CityVille 2, which Zynga has discontinued. A Zynga spokesperson said the company is trying to place those that were laid off from its Baltimore studio in other studios within the company.

Electronic Arts has laid off staff in its Los Angeles and Montreal studios today, according to multiple reports - including this one over at Polygon. Rumors were flying earlier in the day that Visceral Montreal, the studio behind upcoming shooter Army of Two: The Devil's Cartel, had been closed.

Joystiq is reporting that Ziff Davis will be shutting down popular and long-running gaming sites 1UP, GameSpy, and UGO. The new owner of IGN also laid off the editorial staff at all three sites, as well as some employees at IGN. Ziff Davis's parent company J2 Global bought IGN and its various web properties earlier in the month, and today it has decided to focus on its core brands - IGN and AskMen.

UK retailer HMV will close an additional 37 retail stores and cut 464 more jobs, according to a CVG report. The latest round of store closures add to the 66 stores that were recently closed throughout the UK, and the loss of 930 jobs. The closures were announced by Deloitte, the company overseeing HMV's administration.

Kotaku is reporting that Activision has laid off about 30 employees from their global workforce. The layoffs are apparently taking place at Call of Duty: Black Ops II developer Treyarch. A spokesperson for the company tells Kotaku that a "good number" of the layoffs are taking place outside of Treyarch as the company shifts its focus away from games based on licensed properties.

Valve's Gabe Newell took the unusual step of breaking his silence on recent developments inside Valve after it was reported yesterday that as many as 25 employees have been let go. Valve did not confirm that that number was accurate. Among those confirmed to be leaving the company are Valve’s director of business Jason Holtman and hardware engineer Jeri Ellsworth.

More bad news for employees of HMV - particularly those 300 employees that worked for the UK-based retailer in Ireland. The Ireland-based division of the company has been shut down and some 300 employees are to be affected by the closures, according to a report in the Irish Examiner. All 16 of HMV’s stores have been closed according to the report, and the company has admitted that it was unable to find a buyer and that the stores would remain closed.

Deloitte, the administrator handling HMV's UK-based business, has identified 66 HMV stores that will be closed in the next two months, according to a Eurogamer report. These retail store closures will affect 930 employees, the firm announced.

UK Retailer HMV has cut 190 jobs across the board, according to administrator Deloitte. Earlier reports had pegged the layoffs at 60, but the group overseeing the retailer's administration later confirmed the larger number. Most notably HMV’s head of technology and games Ewan Pinder was given a pink slip today. The 60 workers who lost jobs were apparently from HMV's head office in the UK.

While the focus has been on the closure of Warren Spector's Junction Point Studios yesterday, the LA Times is reporting that additional employees working for Disney's games division were laid off as well. Citing an anonymous source inside the company who was "not authorized to discuss the matter publicly," the LA Times reports that 50 more employees lost their jobs at Disney Interactive yesterday.

The studio founded by Warren Spector and later purchased by Disney has been closed, according to multiple reports and a confirmation from a representative at Disney. Spector's studio was best known for developing Epic Mickey and Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two.

Sony has confirmed with IGN that PlayStation All-Stars developer SuperBot has laid off a number of its staff. An SCEA spokesperson told the publication that work would continue on PlayStation All-Stars DLC to be released in the next few months despite the smaller staff at the studio. Sony did not confirm just how much of the staff had been laid off.

Secret World and Age of Conan developer Funcom continues to tighten its belt as part of a restructuring plan it announced last year. Today the company announced that it has closed its Beijing studio and laid off staff in its Canadian and U.S. offices. The Beijing studio was responsible for creating the art and animation for the company's Secret World MMO. Responsibilities of the Beijing studio will be moved to Funcom's U.S. offices. Despite a heavier workload Funcom also reduced the workforce at the Raleigh, North Carolina-based office.

Dish Network announced that it plans to close hundreds of Blockbuster stores in the next couple of weeks and expects to cut thousands of jobs as a result. The video and videogame rental company was bought by Dish in 2010 after the company went bankrupt. CNN Money reports that 300 stores will be closed in the United states and 3,000 jobs will be lost.

After multiple reports from various sources revealed that a majority of the staff at Gas Powered Games had been laid off, Chris Taylor took to the Internet to comment. Apparently Taylor and a few employees are the only ones left at the studio behind such titles as the Dungeon Siege series, Demigod, and Supreme Commander. Recently Taylor and company launched a Kickstarter for a new game called Wildman but concerns over its early performance cause Gas Powered Games, who is short on cash, to lay off its staff.

UK retailer HMV will enter into administration on Tuesday, the company announced. The move to administration (the European equivalent of bankruptcy here in the U.S.) comes after major suppliers like Universal Music, EMI, Warner Brothers and Disney refused to provide further financing needed for the retailer to continue trading. The company has turned to Deloitte as its administrators after lackluster Christmas sales made the retailer unable to secure terms on various loans. If things go badly it could mean the loss of an estimated 4,500 jobs and the possible closure of over 200 stores.

Even though Funcom's The Secret World MMO found success after switching from a monthly subscription fee to a free-to-play payment model (more than 70,000 copies of the game were sold in the last four weeks, according to Eurogamer), the company is still forced to move ahead with restructuring, according to Develop.

Zynga CEO Mark Pincus said way back in October that the company would be shutting down its Japanese-based studio Zynga Japan as part of a company-wide cost reduction plan and today that closure is a reality. According to a Facebook post by Zynga Japan CEO Kenji Matsubara, the studio is being closed and three of its games are being turned off. Matsubara posted a personal message thanking fans for their support and announcing the discontinuation of the games that were available in Japan.

According to this Massively report, Final Fantasy publisher Square Enix has laid off an undetermined number of employees at its Los Angeles offices. The report is based on a number of anonymous tips - which presumably are being attributed to either current or former Square Enix employees that are close to the situation.

Square Enix later confirmed that something was going on with the company by issuing an official statement:

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ZippyDSMlee: .....win8 hates any left over hidden install partitions from other version of windows....only waste 5 hours finding that out...its ahrder than you think keeping up with 4 or 5 HDDS......03/03/2015 - 4:44am

Matthew Wilson: I am going to pax east, any games you guys want me to check out?03/02/2015 - 11:23pm

ZippyDSMlee: No one remembers the days of Cinemagic and Cynergy eh? :P, meh even MGS is getting to film like....03/02/2015 - 8:44pm

MechaTama31: I was about to get all defensive about liking Metal Gear Solid, but then I saw that he was talking about "cinematic" as a euphemism for "crappy framerate".03/02/2015 - 8:29pm

prh99: Just replace cinematic with the appropriate synonym for poo and you'll have gist of any press release.03/02/2015 - 5:34pm

Monte: Though from a business side, i would agree with the article. While it would be smarter for developers to slow down, you can't expect EA, Activision or ubisoft to do something like that. Nintnedo's gotta get the third party back.02/28/2015 - 4:36pm

Monte: Though it does also help that nintendo's more colorful style is a lot less reliant on graphics than more realistic games. Wind Waker is over 10 years old and still looks good for its age.02/28/2015 - 4:33pm

Monte: With the Wii, nintnedo had the right idea. Hold back on shiny graphics and focus on the gameplay experience. Unfortunatly everyone else keeps pushing for newer graphics and it matters less and less each generation. I can barely notice the difference02/28/2015 - 4:29pm

Monte: ON third party developers; i kinda think they should slow down to nintendo's pace. They bemoan the rising costs of AAA gaming, but then constantly push for the best graphics which is makes up a lot of those costs. Be easier to afford if they held back02/28/2015 - 4:27pm

Matthew Wilson: http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2015/02/28/the-world-is-nintendos-if-only-theyd-take-it/ I think this is a interesting op-ed, but yeah it kind of is stating the obvious.02/28/2015 - 2:52pm